This salt print is from Hirshorn’s series shown in “Tending the Fires.” It was taken two years ago in the kitchen of the Merchant’s House Museum. Others featured the same model — representing one of the Irish servants who once lived and worked in the house — cleaning the parlor grates. One of those photographs was published in the Historic House Trust newsletter, where a visiting historian saw it and marveled at how lucky the museum was to have original period photographs of its servants…

It was a natural mistake, given the atemporality of the image, though it is extremely uncommon to find photographs of servants dressed in their working clothes from the mid-19th century — even more rare to see one in the act of cleaning. I was particularly amused because I was the model portraying the servant. I made the dress I wore in less than three days, then sweated through an August heat wave in a corset and three petticoats while holding really, really still for the long exposures. Before the shoot, Hal brought over books of photographs by Arthur Munby, a British photographer who broke with his own social class to document 19th-century working women — most famously taking many photographs of Hannah Cullwick, a maid-of-all-work who was also secretly married to Munby.

Earlier this year, I — and lots of other people — participated in another series by Hal Hirshorn, this time recreating the death and funeral of Seabury Tredwell in 1865.

It was an incredible project, a production of prodigious proportions. Hirshorn shot in three historic locations, including the Merchant’s House Museum, Grace Church, and the New York City Marble Cemetery. There were 14 different models — some taking part in multiple shoots — each wearing some sort of mid-19th century mourning costume. The weather was less than cooperative. The final shoots had to be rescheduled thanks to hurricane Irene. An earlier shoot took place despite an impending rainstorm that let loose just as we were heading home. You haven’t lived until you’ve chased four men in top hats carrying a coffin down Broadway, while wearing a corset and a hoop skirt, in the middle of a torrential downpour.

If you’d like to see the funeral photographs in person, you’ve got three more days, until Monday, November 28, to visit the exhibit at the Merchant’s House Museum. Works by Sally Mann, John Dudgale, and RA Friedman are also on display, along with historic spirit photographs from Thomas Harris and The Burns Archive.

November 2nd, 2011

October 4th, 2011

I’ve just finished installing a new exhibition at the museum where I work, and I think it’s the best we’ve ever done! A handful of 19th century spirit photographs (invented in 1861 by William Mumler, who claims to have photographed his dead brother while sitting for a self-portrait) are paired with breathtaking modern photography that “channels the past” by Sally Mann, John Dugdale, Hal Hirshorn, and RA Friedman. The 19th-century photos are from the collections of Thomas Harris and The Burns Archive*.

I am in love with every single piece of art in the show, not to mention the old spirit photographs. I am having a grand time wandering down to the gallery every few hours, just to gaze at them. Here’s a sneak peek at one of the photographs from Hal Hirshorn’s salt print series “The Death & Funeral of Seabury Tredwell:”

Hard to believe this was taken in August 2011! It’s posed in the New York City Marble Cemetery, where Seabury Tredwell (who died in 1865) was interred for 6 months. The photograph, and nine others in the series, are even more evocative in person. The works by Mann, Dugdale, and Friedman are not to be missed either.

And yes, that is me wiping my eye over the coffin. One of the best things about getting involved in curating art exhibits in NYC is that you sometimes get invited to model for a real live artist! I’ll let the other models — all of whom are talented artists and performers in their own right — retain their anonymity.

*I’ve curated two shows in collaboration with The Burns Archive, which is one of the most fascinating places I have ever visited, and an incredibly important collection of 19th century photography. Memento Mori: The Birth and Resurrection of Postmortem Photography and New York’s Civil War Soldiers: Photographs of R.B. Bontecou & Words of Walt Whitman are the titles of the shows, in case you feel like looking them up.

August 19th, 2011

Gosh, it seems like I am forever pretending that I lived in the mid-19th century and one of my relatives just died.

I was at it again yesterday, as we all pitched in to help artist Hal Hirshorn stage the first of three photo shoots in preparation for an upcoming show that I’m curating. This digital snapshot was taken by one of the other models (there were 7 in total, plus a fake corpse and a coffin).

Someday, I’ll make a more cheerful outfit. I’ve often thought of copying this 1846 painting by Charles Cromwell Ingham: